“Adios, lider de los que estan perdidos.”
He turned and walked out with the other man, who stared over his shoulder at Father Soltera the whole way out.
“Dios mio!” Father Soltera said. Feeling faint, he leaned against the nearby bread rack.
He heard Filipe’s voice from far away. “Father? Are you okay?”
Then he was falling, slowly and awkwardly sliding down the rack to the cold linoleum floor, the translation of Guero Martinez’s words banking off his mind with wicked force.
“Goodbye, leader of those who are lost.”
Chico and Bennie did their best to reign him in with promises of Olde English, Courvoisier and getting the Park Side Taco Truck to swing by and rig them all up, party-style, for his welcome home, but it was no use.
Hector wanted a name and they gave it to him: David Fonseca. Supposedly, he was a big dude that worked the door at The Mayan. Hector didn’t care how big he was, but the fact that it was a Tuesday was a problem. Lover boy lived somewhere in Eagle Rock but no one knew where, so Hector made Chico drive to The Mayan near the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Hill Street in Downtown LA, but it was closed. There would be no fellow employees or a manager to intimidate into getting Fonseca’s home address.
Hector was stuck. They could go back to Marisol’s place and he could try and get it out of her, but a very real part of him was afraid that she wouldn’t give it up, that she would be more loyal to her new man than to him, and that would only make things worse. Way worse.
He’d made them shut off the rap music in the car and drive around in silence for a while, his calm receding like the tide and leaving behind that rage again, like a shore of hard, wet sand. There would be no rest, no peace, until the rage was released, until he eased his pain by spreading it around.
What about Bat Boy? The Smiling Midget asked. He was back, seated like an unbuckled toddler in the front seat between Hector and Chico, his feet barely hanging off the edge as he dug at the grime beneath the fingernails of his pudgy hands.
Hector smiled. “Bennie?”
“Yah?”
“The dude that cranked you in the face and broke your jaw? Where’s he live?”
There was a confused sort of tone in Bennie’s voice when he answered. “Fouth Gate.”
“Where in South Gate?”
Bennie shook his head and then bobbed his chin for Chico to give up the ghost. “On Filmore. 1232 Filmore. Guillermo got the info for us the day after it happened. We just held off on making a move.”
Guillermo was a friend of theirs who worked parking enforcement in Bell Gardens. All he ever needed was a license plate, and the address was sure to follow.
“We sure the dude who cranked you was the one who owned the car?”
“Yeah. Bennie’s uncle got the plate before they got away. Yellow Honda with black flames on the sides. Name’s Jimmy. He was bragging at the party that he races three nights a week. Supposedly wins so much he don’t need a job or some bullshit.”
“Fhat we gonna do, jefe?” Bennie asked nervously.
Hector replied angrily, “Gonna do what you pussies shoulda done as soon as you got outta the hospital. We gonna find his punk ass and even up the score.”
“He’s hooked up.”
“So? Since when has that mattered? And, I mean . . . South Gate, man? Seriously? You afraid of some South Gate fools?”
“Nah. I’m down,” Chico stated flatly.
Bennie chimed in. “Fhit. Me too. Fer sure.”
This is gonna be fun, added The Smiling Midget with a snigger.
Since only Hector could hear him, he was the only one to snigger along as he nodded approvingly. It was true. They’d gotten soft and lazy and content since he’d gone in. And this was only two of his crew. Either way, the bar had to be reset.
“Okay. First, we gonna go to King Taco for lunch . . . I been dying for one of their burritos for months. Then we gonna go get a six pack, take a few pulls and go see if this fool’s home. We good?”
They both nodded vigorously as Chico pulled a U-turn and headed to King Taco. Hector closed his eyes and let the wind blow through the window and comb over his face.
Hours later, bellies full of the carne asada burrito version of brunch, they were parked outside a beaten down house with worn white paint and navy-blue trim. The yellow Honda with the tough guy black flames was parked in the driveway. No other cars were parked in the driveway or in front of the house. It was the afternoon, a bit early to mix it up, but after watching the house for a good chunk of time they decided he was probably home alone.
Hector got out of the car first and walked up the driveway and to the front door. Chico and Bennie hung back a bit. They were more likely to be recognized by Jimmy, so they pressed themselves against the side of the house and waited as Hector knocked on the door.
It took three tries before a sleepy faced dude answered the door, fresh sleep still crammed in his eyes as he squinted against the sunlight outside and looked Hector up and down suspiciously. “Watchyouwant, ese?”
Hector looked past him, into the house. The living room was full of old furniture. There was a Barcalounger stuck in the reclined position with a stack of old magazines just inside the doorway to the left and opposite a brand new flat screen television. On a counter that separated the living room from the kitchen there were about eight small fish bowls filled with what looked to be betta fish. There didn’t appear to be anyone else home.
“Man. I’m looking for a dude named Jimmy? Plays baseball?”
It was right as Jimmy squirreled his face up into a “what the hell” expression that Hector punched him, hard, in the jaw. After that, it was a flurry of exchanged punches and kicks, he and Jimmy spinning around in circles into the house, Hector keeping a wary eye at the hallway to the right to see if anyone else emerged. Chico and Bennie charged in and closed the door behind them. If there was anyone else in the house, their numbers would be more equal now.
But, unfortunately for Jimmy, no one else was home.
Hector knocked him to the ground and then got him in a school yard pin. While sitting on Jimmy’s chest, Hector pummeled his face with heavy blows, repeatedly, until Jimmy’s eyes glazed over, at one point nearly rolling back in his head before something, sheer terror probably, forced them back into the waking world. “What the hell, man?” he kept crying through his bleeding mouth, his lower lip now split down the middle.
“You like cranking people with baseball bats when they ain’t looking, chingon?”
Confused, Jimmy looked around. Recognition flashed across his face when he saw Chico and Bennie standing behind Hector.
“Hey, man—” Jimmy pulled his hands up to protect his face, the fight in him all gone now. “I didn’t know what was goin’ on. Your boys started it.”
The rage in Hector simply would not subside. He remembered Marisol standing half naked in the hallway of her house earlier in the day, her body, once his but now tainted by another man, and his eyes began to sting again, which only made the rage in him double and then triple.
“Don’t matter who started it. Ain’t no rules to this game, holmes, and you know it.”
“Look man, just go. We’ll drop it now, okay?”
Chico laughed. “What did you say?”
“You busted my boy’s jaw, bitch!” Hector shouted. He motioned to Bennie. “Get over here, man.”
Bennie stepped forwards, his chunky frame looming over them, then he leaned over and rocked Jimmy with a single punch to the forehead. “I fould bust your jaw too, fool.”
This last punch had finally knocked Jimmy senseless. He began to mutter something incoherently and look around in all directions, his eyes opening and closing frantically as he tried to focus on the world around him.
Meanwhile, The Smiling Midget had reappeared and was now sitting in the Barcalounger thumbing through an old copy of Reader’s Digest.
Man. I always loved the Quotable Quotes section, he said to no one in p
articular.
Hector had an idea. “You know, fool, my boy? He can’t eat! Gotta sip his food and shit for the next eight weeks. But you can eat, can’t you?”
Dazed, Jimmy just shook his head.
“Yeah. Yeah, you can. So, guess what, homie? We gonna feed you before we leave, okay?”
Hector looked over his shoulder and saw Bennie and Chico looking at him, confused.
“Bens. Grab me one of those fish bowls. Chic, you hold him down.”
Chico sat opposite Hector and pinned Jimmy’s hands down as he began to squirm and kick frantically. As Bennie handed the fish bowl to him, Hector looked over the beautiful, red fish inside, confirming what he thought earlier: it was a betta. He glanced up at the counter. They all were.
“You like making little fish kill each other, don’t ya, homie?” Hector spat.
Jimmy, perhaps thinking that Hector was going to bash him with the fish bowl, began to scream, and that’s when Hector poured the water out of the fish bowl and into his mouth. He began to choke and spit the water back out in a cold panic, closing his eyes and thrashing his head from side to side.
When he opened them again, Hector waited for it, for the one and only thing that could take the rage away. Terror.
The Smiling Midget saw it too. Peering over from the chair he said, Ahhhhhhh. Look at that. Better than a glass of fine scotch. I do believe he’s gonna pee himself, Hector.
Jimmy’s eyes widened as he saw Hector holding the red betta between his fingers. It flipped and flopped frantically over his face.
“You wanna die, puto?” Hector growled.
Jimmy shook his head.
“Then open up wide. It’s time for lunch.”
Then they fed Jimmy all eight of his betta fish, one at a time.
Chapter Six
The little old lady that came charging out of Eric Yi’s house was, without a doubt, the smallest person that Parker had ever seen in his life. Her arms and legs were like thin sticks tucked into her red sweater and beige pants, and though she wore flat shoes she moved with such a determined gait across the lawn, with her head tucked into her hunched back and her arms swinging wildly, that she almost appeared to be speed skating towards them.
Campos stifled a chuckle as the woman launched into a tirade in what Parker could only guess was Korean, her angry face and the hard-sounding vowels translation enough that she was hurling profanities at them like no tomorrow.
Yi spun around and tried to calm her but it was no use. She took turns pointing her finger at each one of them, shaking her head all the while before she threw up her hands and tried to pull Yi back inside the house. At four foot, tops, and eighty pounds, tops, and probably eighty years old, minimum, she was incredibly strong, yanking on Yi’s arm as if it were a rope on a boat. He teetered, righted himself, teetered again and then tried to pull away, which only angered her further.
She grabbed at his t-shirt, which tore, before the two of them shouted more Korean at each other. Parker looked at Campos, who was looking cautiously at the pit bull, which was now up again and pacing along the fence line and barking ferociously. The old lady, her face a valley of deep wrinkles, seemed to be growing angrier, and twice now she’d ominously glanced at the dog and the gate.
Parker grimaced. He and Campos appeared to be thinking the same thing: if she made a move to the—
And she did. Pushing away from Yi she sped to the gate to try to open it and let the dog out.
“Kendo! No!” Yi yelled at the dog.
When he was on foot patrol Parker would’ve had a Taser. Now all he had was the 9-mm resting snugly on his belt against the small of his back, and the SIG Sauer P290 that Trudy had bought him for Christmas strapped to his ankle. He didn’t want to blow holes into a dog—he loved dogs—but sadly that might be the only choice left if the old lady succeeded.
Instead, Campos, who evidently did not love dogs, went ape shit and screamed “Jungji!”—which must have meant “Stop!” in Korean or something—met the lady at the gate and slammed it shut just as she was opening it, and then pulled his hand back just in time to avoid the dog’s snapping jaws.
Seeing Campos go for his gun, Yi began to plea. “No! Officer, I’m sorry. No. It’s okay. She’s my grandmother! I got her.”
Yi then picked up the old woman like a child, as she kicked and flailed against him, and immediately carried her back inside the house.
Campos still had his hand on his gun. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That this could go domestic in some weird-ass way?”
“Yep.”
Parker reached behind his back and unsnapped his holster. “He comes out of that house with anything but open hands . . .”
“Him? Shit. I ain’t worried about him. It’s the freakin’ grandma, man. What’s her deal?”
“Obviously, she doesn’t want him talking to us.”
Meanwhile, Kendo the dog was so upset he was barking and snapping in pirouettes around the yard before making random charges at the fence and slamming into it.
Parker was in the process of trying to figure out what to do next when Yi finally came back out of the house. His hands weren’t empty, which caused initial alarm, but then Parker made out that he had a dog leash and choke chain in them. They watched as Yi tried twice to string up Kendo before his grandmother was back at the screen door, shouting and yelling again.
Finally, Yi evidently had enough and unleashed a tirade at the door so angrily that it sent the old lady back into the shadows and even seemed to scare the dog.
Yi turned and looked at Campos and Parker in frustration before walking back over to them. “Guys. She don’t want me talking to you. I’ve tried to help and all. But . . . is there anything else?”
“We can’t leave until we have somewhere to go,” Campos said, his voice full of intent as he put his hands on his hips.
Yi thought hard for a moment before he reached some sort of agreement with himself. “Fine, man. They won’t hurt my mom or my grandmother. My sister’s outta here. I’m bailing tomorrow to head down to San Diego anyways and I ain’t never coming back. Since Jin’s outta town? The guy you want to talk to? He’s called Tic Toc. Mean little rat bastard. Drives a tricked-out Honda Accord, purple, with spoilers, twenty-twos, nitrous, the whole nine yards.”
“What’s he gonna tell us?” Parker pushed.
“I dunno. He’s a runner for Mondo, but long term. He’s usually in on any shit that goes down, so he’s probably gonna have a lot of the details about that night.”
“Where can we find him?”
“Hit or miss. He don’t live anywhere in particular, ’cause he’s always on runs. Plays basketball at McClintock Park some days . . . likes to hang out at Piper’s too, the custom auto shop over on Wilshire.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Stocky. Lifts weights a lot. Always wears a baseball cap on backwards. He’s never far from his car, neither.”
“The purple Accord?”
“Yep. With a Tweety Bird hanging from the damn rearview mirror.”
Parker nodded while Campos sighed and asked, “So? Where you gonna be in San Diego? In case we need to ask you more questions.”
Yi shifted his weight on the balls of his feet and suddenly looked nervous. “I dunno yet.”
“Don’t get cute, Eric.”
“Man. Give me a break. My probation officer is gonna know everything anyway. She’s already up my ass.”
“Can’t believe she’d green-light this move so soon after you got out.”
“Man. She green-lighted it just before I got out.”
Campos looked at Yi very closely. “So. You knew you were done with the Soldiers already, huh?”
A sneer of contempt creased Yi’s face. “Screw them, man. They never did nothin’ for me except show me what jail looks like a few times over. No more. I’m out. You guys will remember if I try getting a job and all, right?”
Parker handed his card to Campos, who add
ed it to his own and handed them both to Yi.
As they said their goodbyes and made their way back to the car, Parker and Campos were silent. More details to follow up on now, more things to check and cross-check. It helped that they could bounce back to Yi by phone if they had to, in case finding this Tic Toc character proved harder than expected. Or so they thought.
Neither one of them had any idea that by the next morning, Eric Yi would be found dead beneath the Fourth Street bridge, stripped to his underwear and shot seventeen times.
Father Soltera was barely able to talk Filipe out of calling 911, insisting instead that all he needed was some water and a minute to catch his breath. Filipe scrambled over to one of the display cases, grabbed a cold bottle of Arrowhead and brought it back to him.
Beneath his jacket Father Soltera could feel his arms shaking. The water felt good going down but also chilled him more. He swallowed a few more gulps and felt the buzzing in his head begin to subside. It would be okay. He wasn’t going to have a stroke or a heart attack. He’d be fine.
He kept telling himself this before he realized he was also mumbling it out loud. Looking up he could see Filipe’s face morph from concern to worry.
Father Soltera forced himself to smile. “I-it’s okay, my friend. Please. Just help me up.”
“Are you sure?”
He was. His legs felt fine. It was just his arms and chest that felt cold and weak. He nodded and Filipe pulled him up by one arm, using his other hand to steady them both.
“Whew. Okay. I’m good, now.”
“Father? Do you know who that was?”
“No.”
“What did he want? Did he threaten you?”
“Not exactly. But he’s . . . he’s . . . not a good person.”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s called Guero. He’s a big boss, for drugs and La Merea. He normally has two bodyguards. I think the other one must be outside, waiting at the car maybe. I dunno. But, the one at my counter? They call him El Puño. The Fist.”
The Parker Trilogy Page 6